Swami Vivekananda

Swami VivekanandaSwami Vivekananda (12 January 1863–4 July 1902), born Narendra Nath Datt was an Indian Hindu monk. He was a key figure in the introduction of Indian philosophies of Vedanta and Yoga to the western world and was credited with raising interfaith awareness, bringing Hinduism to the status of a major world religion in the late 19th century. He was a major force in the revival of Hinduism in India and contributed to the notion of nationalism in colonial India. He was the chief disciple of the 19th century saint Ramakrishna and the founder of the Ramakrishna Math and the Mission. He is perhaps best known for his inspiring speech beginning with "Sisters and Brothers of America,” through which he introduced Hinduism at the Parliament of the World's Religions in Chicago in 1893. Birth and childhood

Swami Vivekananda was born as Narendranath Dutta in Calcutta, the capital of British India, on 12 January 1863 during the Makar Sankranti festival. He belonged to a traditional Bengali Kayastha (a caste of Hindus) family. There was precedence of ascetics in his family—Narendra's grandfather Durga Charan Datta renounced the world and became a monk at the age of twenty five.[10] Narendra's father Vishwanath Datta was an attorney of Calcutta High Court. Vishwanath Datta had a liberal, progressive outlook on social and religious matters. Narendra's mother, Bhuvaneswari Devi, was a pious woman. Before the birth of Narendra, she yearned for a son and asked a relative at Varanasi to make religious offerings to the god Shiva. According to traditional accounts, Bhuvaneswari Devi had a dream in which Shiva said that he would be born as her son. Bhuvaneswari Devi accepted the child as a boon from Shiva and named him Vireswara, meaning "powerful god" in Bengali. The rational approach of his father and the religious temperament of his mother helped shape young Narendra's thinking and personality. He learnt the power of self-control from his mother. In later life,...